Drumming fingers

I bought a lens from a company in Taiwan since no one in Europe could supply one at a sensible price and even with shipping and customs duty it is still a great deal, however...

One and a half days from payment to arrival in the UK is impressive. Less impressive is that it has now been awaiting clearance at customs for approaching five days now

Only five days? Have you no patience?


It took the Dutch PO 5 weeks to clear a camera strap from the US. Their handling charge was nearly 3 times the VAT due on it too .

No luck there, mine took 5 weeks to clear customs also, and that was the express delivery option

Get MikeP's cat to sit by your post box Ken - he'll save your fingers

I ordered an 8GB MicroSD card for my Sat Nav on the 19th and was told delivery end of next week. It turned up today ! AND it seems to have come from Hong Kong judging by the Customs label.

It's installed and I'm s l o w l y doing the update to my maps.

Ken - get in touch with the company handling this import for you. Tell them (after they confirm the duty/vat, and handling fee) that you give them authority to clear the goods on your behalf. That should hopefully speed things up a bit...

Pity you never purchased from Thailand - I'm due back from there in a couple of days' time, and could have couriered it up on the weekend service to you so that you'd have it by Monday. The money saved on the duty/vat would have been a fair wee bit, and the courier charge would be no more than a fiver, since I only pay wholesale rates.

If you think the charges on the duty/vat are excessive, get the customs tariff number, and the CPC (customs procedure code) number, and I'll check that it was correctly declared to HMRC, so that if you end up in dispute over the charges, I can give you the correct info.

Thanks Steven, it's now cleared and Parcel Force's national hub. Past experience is that Parcel Force is the only company that I have ever had to pay duty with and of course some outrageous collection fee. Anyway my grumpiness will dissipate when the Q 02 zoom arrives.

When it arrives, pay the fee then write to Parcelforce asking them to justify the charges.

When they give you a feeble answer, write back and tell them that you will take them to the small claims court because the charge is unfair. They will refund the money because they don't want it to go to court - I think they know that there is a real danger they will lose and end up paying out millions.

The basic problem is they justify the cost because they have to examine incoming parcels, therefore when there is a charge (VAT or duty) they add on their 'handling' charge.

But...

a) This cost is what the sender has already paid (you don't pay for a settee to be delivered then pay extra for the deliveryman's gloves)

b) They derive the cost by dividing the total cost of the customs operation by the number of people with chargeable items. Therefore they are actually saving that if it costs 5p to examine each parcel and 1 in 300 is chargeable they will charge £15 'handling' to the person who has a customs charge. So you end up paying for things which are nothing to do with you!

The more people who write the better! And I wait for the day they don't refund me so someone can take them to court!

Standard brokerage fee charged by my customs agent is around 20GBP (I think), and they would apply the correct tariff/CPC combination to clear this. Had it come through our company, our accounts manager would phone you (provided we had a number on the airwaybill) to confirm the charges, and thus provide you with the opportunity to pay by credit card. Where the duty/vat is low, we would pay the fees in advance so that the goods are released to us on the same day as flight arrival (customs permitting), so if we got your prior aggrement to pay, you would have your goods within 3-4 working days from Taiwan. If it was small enough, I'd even get our agent in Hong Kong (that's the hub for us) to forward it to me as company mail, thus avoiding customs altogether. I know that's being a bit "naughty", but customs are only really looking at what's being imported privately and commercially, in order to have some sort of control on things. In over 25 years' in the courier business, I have yet to see an officer examine co-mail.

The cheapest price for the 02 I found here was $249. B&H charge $296.95 for the 02 but $279 if it has a white Q body attached! Sooo, it is due to arrive tomorrow by UPS.

I bought a black Q with the 8.5mm lens two weeks back for the wife as a local dealer was shedding stock and even bundled it with the leather case. The 02 lens was not an option available then.

I've been quietly impressed with the results so far.

Best regards

I remember going to Heathrow with a friend to collect a real Samurai sword - there was a small amount to pay in duty &c. The handling company suggested it would be cleared at around 10:00.

We arrived a little before 10:00 and were told it was moving "up the queue" and finally that it was number 2. 30 minutes later we asked, and it was at around 300! A shipment of fruit and veg had arrived and that always queue jumps!

Went for a coffee, go back and it was slowing getting to the front, got below 10, then suddenly back up to over 200 again and it continued like that all day.

The handling agent provided lunch for us! and even made sure one of his warehouse staff would be there late to hand the sword over when it was finally cleared - at 18:30 or so.

I went down to the depot because its nearby and if couldn't be bothered waiting for them to write to me over the holiday weekend. The seller had just declared the value as $79 USD so I had to pay £26.87 (£13.37 vat and £13.50 handling fee) so all in all the lens cost £178.88 which is a saving of £32 over the best UK prices so I'm quite pleased.